It had nothing to do with the fact that Google
Photos is rolling out new innovation on a weekly basis while
Flickr is
still stuck in 2004. I realized it when I went to
Trey Ratcliff’s photowalk at Stanford. There were over 200
people there. *200 people*! It was the largest photowalk I’ve
ever been on and I’ve done dozens over the years. And what was
everybody talking about at the photowalk?

Flickr?

No.

Google+?

Yes.

Not only was *everyone* talking about Google, there were tons of
people from Google who were there at the walk.

Google Photos Community Manager Brian
Rose was there (along with his sexy moustache). The Photo
Team guy who built their lightbox Vincent
Mo was there. Google+ Community Manager Natalie
Villalobos was there (she used to work at Yahoo).
Chris
Chabot was there (and he was at Wednesday night’s photowalk
in SF too). Mike
Wiacek was there.

And these are just some of the people at Google that I know
better than others.

I remember back when Flickr used to feel like this. Back when
Stewart
Butterfield used to show up at the SF Flickr Social meetups.
Even though those were smaller meetups, they were full of the
same high energy and spirit. Now the SF Flickr Group is basically
dead. The meetups that used to happen every month don’t happen
anymore. There are only three posts to
the group in the past year and one of them is about reviving the
group. I haven’t seen a Flickr employee in years. I’m still
banned from their help forum for two years now — thanks alot
guys.

Meanwhile I visited the Google Campus last week and got to spend
an entire afternoon with an excited and engaged team who are full
of energy and charged up about building the next great thing in
photos.

While it would be easy to point to the fact that there are more
photographers and photographs still on Flickr

Flickr than the fledgling Google+, the fact of the matter is that
the most resolved 10% have now moved on from Flickr to Google+.
It will take time, maybe even a few years for the rest of them to
follow, but follow they will. I’ve seen this movie before. I
blogged the tipping point back in 2005
before Flickr overtook Webshots for the first time.

Webshots is still around of
course, but they are entirely irrelevant at this point.
Remember how excited we all were about flickr back then? Sort of
like how we are about Google Photos now.

And like Flickr killed Webshots, Google+ will kill flickr.

When we look back 5 years from now at the downfall of Flickr
there will probably be plenty of people to blame.

Was it simply ineffective Yahoo management? Were the execs too
demoralized about underwater stock options?

Carol
Bartz still doesn’t have a Flickr account. Meanwhile Sergey
Brin posted shots earlier this week of some kick ass
underwater photography from a trip of his to Egypt.

Was it all of the turnover, including the layoffs themselves in
the flickr group and lack of any meaningful Yahoo investment?

Was it the rotating team leadership after Stewart the problem?
Was it the attitude coming out of Community Management that
photographers were more of a nuisance to put up with and talked
down to than a community worth engaging?

Who knows.

But Flickr is very much dead in the water. It will take time to
really see it happen, but they’ve lost the soul of photosharing.
They’ve lost the spirit of photosharing — the zest and passion
and love — and while they got away with that for a long time due
to lack of competition, things have now changed with Google
Photos arriving on the scene, and to a degree 500px as well.

I’m sure I’ll get a bunch of haters responding to this post.
Flickr is still beloved by so many of us. Myself included. I
still upload photos up there every single day. Don’t hate me for
sharing this opinion. And don’t bash Google Photos for whatever
features you think they lack compared to flickr — but, but, but,
Google+ doesn’t have groups, blah, blah, blah.

All that’s coming.

As I mentioned before, it’s not about the features, it’s about
the spirit. And with weekly innovation on their invite only beta
product, Google+ is far more likely to get the final product
right than Flickr is to innovate at this point.

Please keep in mind that this is just my personal observation
after watching the photo sharing space very closely over a long
period of years. I very well could be wrong.

Mark Twain’s famous quote “the reports of my death are greatly
exaggerated,” in fact comes to mind.

Update #2: Peter
Adams got a great group photo from last night. He was
shooting with a Phase One system which is pretty awesome.
Check out his group photo here — be sure to actually click on
the photo to see it huge in the lightbox view.